This is somewhat of a question and a statement. I’ll give some suggestions throughout as to why you should have a game dev side hustle. But I also need to ask you the question: why should you have one? At the end of the day, I can’t answer that for you. I mean, I’ll make some guesses and suggestions, but I feel like I hardly know you (maybe you should introduce yourself in the comments so I won’t feel as lonely!).
Anyway, this is an important question. Your ability to keep yourself motivated and your product on track depends heavily on your understanding why you are doing this side hustle.
Why? – Tommy (Chris Farley), Tommy Boy
Honestly, this is a question you should ask with almost everything you’re doing. If you don’t truly know why you go to work in the morning, why you’re on a diet, or why you’re binge-watching Full House, it’s hard to have focus in life.
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As always, I differentiate side hustle from hobby in how seriously you take it. Are you gonna actually ship something? Are you committed? I call that a hustle. Doesn’t mean it’ll make money, and definitely doesn’t mean it’ll become your full time work-from-home gig. It just means you’re treating it like it’s real.
The Pie Piece Problem
Odds are your “why” will actually be a combination of several things. This is both good and bad. Good because the secondary motivators can help buoy up the main one in times of pressure. Bad because people often end up with a bunch of secondary motivators, and no primary.
A good first step in working through your motivations is to come up with a long and varied list of what may be motivating you. Just write down all your ideas. This is the brainstorming phase, and it’s ok if some of the motivations are dumb.
Focus
The next thing you’ll need to do, is take your list of motivations, and break them into buckets. I like having 3 buckets: primary, supporting, insignificant. How many levels you decide to have is up to you. I will strongly push, though, that you have a top-level group AND that group can only have one thing in it.
If you follow my levels, you should start with everything being listed as “supporting”. Next go through and move the things that actually don’t matter all that much to me into “insignificant”. At this point, you’ve got a handful of really good reasons to be working on this project. Here’s where it gets tough. You really must choose one and only one item from this list to be your primary.
This primary motivator is the thing that will keep you going. Will make you actually open up the laptop to work on this despite all the other exciting distractions the world is throwing at you.
This primary motivator should be succinct and direct. In theory, it’s your answer if someone at a party asks you “why are you doing this?”. I say “theory” because sometimes this motivator is private. Maybe it’s money, and you’d really rather not talk about those prospects with friends or family. Maybe your game is an elaborate revenge play against the high-school sweetheart that dumped you (get help). Whatever it is, you should at least be able to tell your reflection in the bathroom mirror what your why is in one word, or one short phrase.
Ideas
For the most part, your motivation is up to you, and I don’t overly care what you choose. I am just happy if you go through the process. I will give you some pointers though, as there are a few common motivators that merit a little more exploration.
To Make Money
This is probably the most common reason people have if they are truly honest with themselves. I think this is a fine motivation, but I also think you need to go into it with eyes wide open. As discussed in my article focused on the income side, making money working on games, or even game-tools (asset store or marketplace) is a bit of a long shot. It takes a surprising amount of polish to make something that might be sticky enough to bring in money and odds are if it does make anything, it’ll be small and short-lived.
But, there’s always that chance. That rare possibility that you could stumble upon some niche or magic mechanic. Some new thing that hits it big due to a weird stroke of luck (Flappy Bird anyone?). Or one of the many smaller “winners” out there that you’ve never heard of because they just make enough to keep the developer happy. So it’s definitely possible to have a profitable game, but you need to know it’s far from a guarantee.
Things are a little sunnier in the supporting-asset space (Asset Store or Marketplace). In fact, even if you just want to make a game, I’d encourage everyone to keep these markets in mind. It’s surprising how often you’re working on your own game and you realize you’ve written a weird tool that everyone needs, or made an awesome asset that doesn’t actually match your game at all. Sell that thing! It probably won’t pay well, but if it helps bring in a few bucks while you keep churning on your game, great.
To Pad Your Resume or Learn a Skill
This is the reason I hear the most. You’ll notice I called “money” the most common honest reason, and this the most heard reason. People don’t like to admit they’re doing this for the money. For one, they don’t want to seem greedy. And even more so, they don’t want to seem like idiots when the thing makes nothing. They know zero income is a strong possibility, so why tell your friends about your unlikely riches?
Which brings us to the “experience gainer”. This actually is a really good reason to work on a game. I might even say it’s a better one than money, since it’s guaranteed if you actually do the work. No matter how boring your game is, if you work on it, you’ll learn. If you publish it or not, you can put that on your resume, or talk about it as you interview for your first (or fifth) game industry job.
To Scratch your Creative Itch
This is my favorite. It’s often what gets me started on a new idea. For me personally, it doesn’t work well as a primary motivator, but early in the process it’s a great muse.
Having some great mechanic, art style, game play, or tool idea is really helpful in getting you focused as you’re planning your project. My main warning here is that often this goal and the money goal can compete. If this is your primary, make sure you hold it there. Make sure you don’t let a desire to raise profit-potential drift your design into something you’re no longer passionate about.
Reminders
Hopefully this was helpful for you. If you did go through the process, I’d encourage you to find ways to keep these motivators in front of you. Write it on a post-it, tattoo it on your forearm, or email yourself.
Do something, make progress, have fun.