Making a game from scratch for money worth it or not?

So I have 2 years of money to live, I could dedicate 12 hours a day on this game.

The game I have in mind is either a FPS like CS GO but with iron sights and every form of gameplay copied from CS GO against bots or maybe peer to peer online if UE4 would allow for easier online out of box.

If I go with the 2D Metal Slug clone it will be done with Unity 5

At the end of it all I do plan on putting in good effort like learning blender and make a decent looking art hopefully I could learn it and it would be possible.

I hope to make maybe $6000 US in the first year which would be more like half when steam takes their cut I don't know a single thing about 3D modeling neither do I know programming.

If this will be a waste of 2 years then let me know so I won't be wasting my time here.

 

Do a couple of months of learning and then decide what you want to do.

 

With zero experience and aiming for money I would say the chances are slim to none when small studios struggle to get their games to succeed. FPS is also one of the genres that has most competition.

 

Thank you as I would much father spend my time in agriculture where I am sure my business in long term crops will net me $2000 USD minimum and tax free a month in 4 years from now.

So thank you for being honest and realistic to me I can instead spend this time enjoying life playing video games until my Agri Business is read in 4 years from now its a family business with me and my brother and its a very profitable business aswell I don't mind the hard work because I know the money is good and its sure and there is no technical knowledge or headaches involved

 

Spend it all on lottery tickets. Chances are you'll make more money that way.

 

I should mention this time spent will either be making a game or playing games

 

I doubt that you'll have much financial success trying to compete with CS:GO.

 

You will then more likely earn more money then by playing CS:GO tournaments and selling/trading the skins for example. However like @AcidArrow you could try game making for a couple of months as a side hobby and see how far can you get.

 

It's never a great idea to make a game from scratch for money, because you won't make money from it*. But someone who makes a game from scratch because the goal is to make a great game, most likely will make money.

There's exceptions but these were viral stupid hits that were basically crap so you'd be doing the lottery.

You can't fake this stuff. But if you were sure you knew you were going to make something great, you would have never posted this thread.

*unless a professional studio of any size, or have competent experienced staff

 

I never looked at games like that, its certainly an interesting point of view.

I should mention something part of the reason for doing this is because I wanted to learn programming. And I thought a great way would be making games. Perhaps in that sense it may be worth it? but then then its probably better to make something AI related for the market or something right?

 

Games are seldom worth it for the money. Do it instead because you want to make a game.

 

How about "because you want to make a game and want the money?". Doesn't have to be one or the other.

Basically... do that if you feel like you'll be having fun while making the game.

Having said that... aiming at CS:GO is aiming too high, because Valve has artist team and you don't. So unless your CS:GO clone will look similar t, say "Superhot", you won't be able to pull it off by yourself.

Try both art styles (2d/3d), and see which one you like better. 2D sounds a bit more plausible to me, though.

A good example of one man project would be, for example, Axiom Verge.

 

Even Superhot had like 6-7 artists.

 

As others have said, trying to make a game from scratch in order to make money in many cases fails to happen. For every story of success with a one time hit, there are others who have literally developed 20 games and made peanuts for it all.

My personally opinion is do not make games to make money, make games because you love games and want to share them. If they make money because of that...well that is a magnificent problem to have.

 

You are quite humbly for only asking $6000 revenue first year after 2 years! Long as you have fun making it then why not never no...

 

Totally true. It's certainly possible to make money and games. However my point is that in general you can take the same skills and make more money outside of games.

So if money is your only motive, I'd suggest not doing games. But if you want to make games, then you can do both.

 

Hi thanks one of the reasons for asking for so low is I am not doing it for the sole purpose of money I really wanted to create a game to feel somewhat accomplished in life but at the same time would love something in return to cover some things like food etc.

It seems I gave the wrong impression on this thread that I was doing it just for money alone. But I thought by giving a figure like $6K for the first year would have indicated it wasn't a money thing. I was as the other guy said looking for both enjoyment and money.

I have decided against all odds to still go ahead with my plan and develop a 2D game. I knew a CS GO competitor would likely be over my head so I have decided to scale back and do a Metal Slug clone game in HD. I was looking at Steam Spy for ideas on how much money people are likely making. And thats how I got the idea that I could pull it off, to me it seems more time consuming than difficult and I do have all the time in the world.

So my plan is to do something realistic, since there are no metal slug clones in HD that I could really find I figured I could do one. I am a huge fan of metal slug games so I believe I can do something that is a lot of fun.

I am gonna go for it, my guess is that Unity would be the best place to do a 2D game BUT I have heard a 3D side scroller isn't a 2D game and that UE4 blueprints would be great for this project.

if you guys have anymore thoughts let me know. For now money is being removed from the equation, its become more of a gaining experience in this field and learning programming along the way.

 

BTW I notice some people say it isn't worth it because some people make peanuts, so I must ask what is their definition of peanuts?

Where I live if I made even as much as $2K a year it is considered a financial success. I don't expect it to be the same elsewhere as I know other places cost of living is higher. But yes I can comfortably live on $2K a year. So even if I made $2K off the game in the first year after spending 2 years to develop it, it would be a financial success for me.

Thats about $166 a Month, surely I could make atleast that much with a decent game if I put a lot of effort into it.

 

The biggest problem with cloning CS:GO is that there is no compelling reason for somebody to play an indie knockoff of CS:GO instead of actually playing CS:GO. Even if you can make a game that is every bit as good as CS:GO, that real world marketing problem is still blocking you path to making money. Part of what makes CS:GO such an awesome game is that a bunch of people already play CS:GO, so there is always plenty of people to play online with.

 

Yeah I realize that so I am switching to cloning Metal Slug. But perhaps doing something differently adding things that could make it a bit more unique. And well doing it in HD offcourse

 

Wonder what country is that! Over here people earning £30k + year and still struggle unfortunately. You must be quite the artist then as metal slug games had beautiful art and detailed animation in them. Good luck

 

If you have some spare time, even if it is like 1 or 2 hours a day, you can learn game development. I wouldn't go quitting your job to go full time indie when you have no experience. It may not be for you. But at least start learning, get some books or watch some videos on programming or art or whatever you are interesting in.

Game development is fun, but it is hard work. It's not the same as playing games, though many times you do end up playing your own game for testing as well as other people's games for... "market research."

At least try it for a few months and try to make a Pong or Breakout type game and see if you are still interested,

 

Thanks for the encouragement I am gonna give it an honest shot, I am not working so I can invest up to 12 hours a day comfortable most cases more than that. So am gonna do a mario clone or something for a couple months so I can learn how to actually use unity and make a game and actually do programming

One of the reasons for doing this is so I can also learn programming

I found an absolutely great book online for free that teaches how to program rather than a programming language they are using C#

http://www.introprogramming.info/wp...Programming-with-CSharp-Nakov-eBook-v2013.pdf

 

C# IS a programming language.

 

Wait a second. You already quit your day job to work 12/day developing games, but you have not learned how to program yet? That is not a great idea. A better strategy would be to work part time on your game development dream in addition to a normal job that pays the bills. What way you can survive while you build your game dev skills.

 

Hi I have money that I had saved up. I have enough for 2 years

I wanted to quit a while now, game or no game I was gone regardless.

 

This is a much more realistic goal. I say go for it, if nothing else you'll know by the end if games are right for you.

 

Thanks I have made up my mind, looking at youtube tutorials right now to get started I am quite excited.

I have a question if you were in my position would you go UE4 with blueprints or Unity? I ask this because UE4 has this sidescroller framework where you get a heads start. I dislike the black dark theme because it causes reflections on my glossy monitor screen and absolutely love the light grey theme in Unity. But besides that, your thoughts on which Engine you would personally go for?

I am doing it as a 2.5D and using Blender

 

I understand the concept of saving up money, quitting your job, and then doing something you have experience in. That is the story behind many small businesses. I am curious about why you chose to quit your job to dedicate all of your time to something you do not currently have experience in. That is a less common situation. Either way, good luck with your adventure. I hope everything works out.

 

Supervisor didn't want me working there and she did everything to force me to quit, other workers ganged up on me aswell. It was a temporary side job at the Airport so it doesn't bother me I am glad I left. I could always find another job it was one of those jobs that nobody wanted, doing security work as a guard with very unprofessional people. They had the highest turnover I had ever seen and I know why now.

 

You are asking in a Unity forum, so you will hear a bunch of people tell you that Unity is better. Try building something in both engines, and see which one feels more productive for you. Personally, I tried both and I strongly prefer Unity, but both engines have solid features.

 

Thanks I will try both.

 

If you want to make money, an effective method could be to go with a scattershoot approach, ie make game jam length games with minimal requirement, a lot of them, and look at what sticks, then you can turn them into something with more polish. It also allow you to have learn faster and having faster turn around and milestone, it also prevent you from putting all your eggs in one basket!

It's only my opinion but I found 3d action games much faster to do than 2d games, I can make a crappy 3d mario clone in 1h and I can't do that for a clash of clone ... And 3d is much more flexible in combining free items, like animation, mesh, texture, etc ... they tend to have better collision engine which remove some hassle, and thing like menu, database and inventory, in slow 2d games, are actually more complex to understand from an implementation perspective that solid object into a scene for a 3d actions games.

Though I'm currently blitz3D for prototyping, it's free, it's great to learn with fast turn around or great to avoid setup and hassle. In fact combine with blender I did show to one my 10 years cousin how to make a crappy 3d mario game in only 1h, the night of the 31dec2016. It's esier to explain the basic than to make a 2d pong IMHO. Also 3d is more flashy and that's good for the ego, therefore the motivation.

 

Hmm.... depending on amount of money involved might be a good idea to look into safe investment opportunities with cash for the second year. Without doing anything crazy (meaning no writing stock market bots, no forex, and other nonsense). Who knows, maybe you'll be able to turn 2 years into a longer period.

 

I recommend not spending that much time each day. Your brain needs time to take what you've learned and process it. Some of my best moments of insight have happened while performing unrelated activities.

On that note I recommend keeping some way of writing down your thoughts within reach whenever possible. Last thing you want to do is forget what the insightful thought actually was. I've had that happen too.

 

Thanks I can't believe how quick I was about to quit them coming back to this thread I feel so much more motivated than ever. My plan is a 3D side scroller like metal slug but I am gonna do as you said gonna try a mario clone first.

I would rather at the end of 2 years to be able to say hey I can program, I can make a game I can do some 3D modeling I can use blender. I built X, Y or Z.

Rather than say well I spent that 2 years just playing games. The way I see it my time is better spent learning something than doing nothing.

 

Just do it. It won't take 2 years to figure out whether it's going to be a waste of time. Nobody can give you much useful info at this point.

And I wouldn't bother with multiplayer fps, you have approximately 0% chance of competing in that space, and fighting bots is usually about as fun as watching paint dry and everyone knows it.

EDIT: didn't see your last comment, good luck!

EDIT2: Just want to add something - don't approach game development with all these indirect goals of learning etc. Most of game dev is a boring grind when you'd rather be doing something else more enlightening. You need to focus on the goal of finishing above all else, imo.

 

thanks I will remember that you are right nothing is worse than starting a project and not completing it.

 

You are on the Unity forums. Which means that for better or worse, you are hanging out with a bunch of people that have chosen to use Unity. Don't expect a usable answer here.

 

@Tusk_ That book actually looks amazing for a beginner with no programming experience. I didn't read it, but I skimmed the table of contents and it looks like a good place to start.

 

Yeah the authors are combined University lecturers from Post Soviet countries they all came together wrote it then translated it from Russian to English it was recommended to me on stackexchange by veteran programmers.

The book is brilliant it teaches how to program and how to think like a programmer logically as opposed to all the books on Amazon that mainly just teaches a language and not in a very good way I am enjoying the book a lot. Its better than all the big name publishers its a real gem.

 

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG I am doing it I am doing it I have a little man that can move left and right omfg I am a Game Engineer!!!!!

OMG I have never been this proud of anything in my life

 

Guys just think for a second what I could accomplish, I could do anything!! I could make a game that nobody has ever done before I feel like a god!!

 

Gotta love that Dunning-Kruger effect!

 

Good luck on your journey
Depending on where you are, the pay is livable (just barely enough if it was for me)

The way I did it was I took on a few freelance work while working full time in system development (2013-2015).
Last year I went full-time freelancer for 6 months, made around $3-4k USD,

and most of my time spent was playing AC*.

*I got into a creative block sometimes for 1 to 2 weeks straight :|
Now I'm back on working full time

edited game name

 

You may want to give that game a new nickname.

 

I honestly would never buy another Ubisoft game. They are worse than Activision and that is saying something I mean the lies and the downgrades alone is too much for me.

 

That's why I don't recommend people to start with fake simple game like tetris, or pong A character that move is so much more powerful in giving the right jolt to comb through the initial slog! By the time they have a whole level (no code) and basic motion (moving and jumping), sunk cost fallacy kicked in when they must implement abstract part like "inventory" and "menu", and the delusion is strong enough to make them bit the nail hard without needing stuff like "discipline" and "motivation", they will learn anyway in the long term! Which paradoxically they will lose delusion and replace it with actual competence over time, organically. Learning works better in a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

Man when I tell you I am proud of myself here. lol I can jump and I have something like a mario platform from pixel art. I have pixel art back ground aswell in sprites. Its just clouds and a tree but yeah pretty decent so far, I am now going to implement my gun that can shoot bullets. Then next step is AI that is attacking me

So far so good.

 

You certainly have the needed attitude for making games.
To quote my old game design teacher "You will make games, and they will suck." - it may seem like a harsh truth, but it's important to know that you won't churn out a AAA title working from home all by yourself. I would suggest you start with something more basic that what you are setting out to do - or maybe start out by making simpler, more limited versions of your vision.
As you progress, you'll get better, learn more, change things, reiterate your design and hopefully you'll create something that people will enjoy. If you have two years to put into your project, you're off to a pretty good start. You might not end up with exactly what you planned to do and you may not make money off of it, but you'll have learned a lot for your next game.