Interviews

JA – Some of you have met with success and are doing this full time, others are just starting out and are doing some consulting on the side or maintain full time jobs.  What is your situation? 

Steve Ince – I’m
currently splitting my time between my freelance work and the development
of my games.  Part of the freelance work I’m doing is writing a
book on Writing for Video Games, in which I hope to be able to pass on my experience to those who wish to read it.  I’m
also involved with the evaluation side of a degree accreditation scheme
because I think it’s important that university and college courses
provide relevant training for their students.

Jonathan Boakes –
I’ve always been involved in several projects, from film to fine
art, so I squeeze the game production in wherever I can. I think
it’s important, when developing games in small groups or individually,
to have something to get you away from the glare of the LCD.
 

Britney
Brimhall – During
the early stages of Al Emmo’s development,
I was living abroad with the company cofounder, working strictly
on Al Emmo. After the skeleton
of the game was laid out, I returned to America.  I worked
an outside job, while attending University classes in Business
and German, and created assets for the game.  I have since
graduated and spend the majority of my time on game development
and any additional time creating commissioned artwork.

Tamás Marosi Z. (Pierrot) – With us, the creative core (including me) leads a double life. One day we try to gather the money for the development from another job, the next day we get into it and work on what is needed. Typically, we do several tasks at the same time. I am responsible for the story, the greater part of the game design, but also for music and sound effects, and sometimes I even do 2D graphics, when I have to help.

Mikael & Eleen Nyqvist – We both have full time jobs in real life, and would not be able to survive otherwise.
 

Matt Clark – I have taken a break from theatre production, and creative lighting installation, to concentrate my efforts towards the Barrow Hill project. A move from London to the actual setting (of Barrow Hill) was essential, and productive, so it has been an amazing year. Being based in the Cornish countryside I am re-creating for the game, could be described as a full time job, but it certainly doesn’t feel like one!  

Cos Russo – I work in the film and music industries here in Australia while developing a sequel.
  

Agustin Cordes & Alejandro Graziani – As I have partly explained, this is already a full time job for both of us. There was simply no way this game could have been done as a hobby. It took us two years this way, and could have taken us over four years if we had not dedicated it our constant attention. Or it could have been a very stripped down version of the original Scratches. Then again, the original Scratches was a stripped down version of the current Scratches. So imagine how stripped down it could have turned out to be!

Fortunately, after many
come and go’s, I can say that this has been a very successful endeavor
for us and we’re already able to work on a next project without
much of the worries we have had so far.

Chris Brendel – I am doing this full-time, in that it is my sole source of income; however, though I am 23, I am still attending college, as I initially took a few years off for personal reasons.  So, I split my time between college and game development.  In college, I am majoring in graphic design and hope to one day find a job in the gaming industry.

Bryan
Wiegele – We’re a bit in the middle. We haven’t
achieved a position yet to say we’re financially independent
and I’ve taken contract work to make ends meet but hopefully
with persistence and keeping to our original goals we can soon
say we’re all working full time.

Gey & Silvio Savarese – Gey, electrical engineer, is consultant for high-tech companies and adjunct professor at University of Salerno, Italy. His remaining time is dedicated to develop adventure games. Silvio, PhD in Computer Vision, is a researcher at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He likes to spend his spare time in developing adventure games. They both wish the day could be much longer than 24 hours in order to spend more time for adventure game development!

Michael Clark – I work full time in the Fund Development department of a Non-profit organization.  I do Adventure Game development purely as a hobby.  I would LOVE to work at it full time, but that is not possible right now.

Knut Mueller – I’m working as a freelance visual artist (paintings & graphics), composer and computer-artist. Beeing an Independent Developer is one part of life, but sometime the biggest part.
 

Keith Nemitz – I’ve been working entirely independently for over two years, but I still consider myself
starting out. I’ve worked in the greater game industry since 1992, but being an indie
means learning how to wear ALL of the hats.