You are an indie. You dont make millions. Most likely you dont make the money that a salaried job will provide. You are following your dream to create games that you want to create in the way you choose to create. What is the personal cost for all this? How is your family reacting to it. Are your parents happy? Is your spouse/partner happy? Does your spouse/partner work to support you? Do you still keep your day job? Do you have kids? Are you concerned what sort of future you might provide to them? Do you have a deadline by which time you must be successful else you go back to the "industry"?

It would be nice to know how you handle these issues.

My current life philosophy is just go for it and avoid having regrets later on, even if it dosn't work out you will never wonder what it would have been like or be depressed about never pursueing your personal talents and dreams. The achievement of actually fullfilling a life time goal is more rewarding than any material goods can ever hope to be!

(I hope this makes sense, I can't remember the last time I slept...)

I'm married and have two kids, so whatever I do I have to keep them in mind. However, my wife is more willing to take risks than I am, so she's behind me 100% in making a game. In fact, just last night we had one of our periodic "finance" talks, making sure our plan is still on track. Part of that plan is a deadline for completion of my game, and another part is a contingency plan for the possibility that it doesn't make us independently wealthy when it's released. :) But I think what keeps it all together is that we always make time for each other and the kids every day. Also, I know my limits and I don't exceed them, which means I rarely work weekends and no more than 12 hours/day, usually no more than 8 unless I'm in the zone.

When I worked at Maxis, I got married shortly before the completion of a project (of course, when we originally set our date, it was based on the assumption that the project would be done *months* before that date....). I took the day off (it was a weekend day) to get hitched and then promptly moved into a hotel near the office so that I wouldn't waste 2 hours a day commuting to and from work. Needless to say, that nearly put an end to my new marriage. "Honeymoon at the Walnut Creek Marriott" was not my wife's idea of a good time (or mine, for that matter). Since then, I've learned that balance is pretty important and making games is only one part of the mix.

Like Paul, I'm married and have a family. In fact I have six kids, the oldest of whom is getting married in a couple of months (to a great guy who's one of the designers on UO! :) ). I also have a mortgage, friends, do stuff with Scouts, my church, etc. "Having a life" is extremely important to me.

But "having a life" doesn't necessarily mean (or even work best with) "having a job." As I've said elsewhere, this is my third startup, so I'm more or less used to this part of the cycle. Having a salaried job has definite benefits -- health insurance, that magical paycheck every two weeks, etc. But it comes at a price, and often offers only an illusory form of stability.

I think a key part to maintaining an even keel in being an indie developer is treating it like any business: you have to have a clear (but flexible) strategy (more than just "make a wicked cool game"), a timeline with milestones you can measure yourself against, an understanding of what you can do and what you need to find or hire out, and a crystal clear understanding of your greatest risks at any given moment. This won't eliminate the risk or the gnawing anxiety that comes with setting your own course, but it does provide a great deal of satisfaction and even solace when you know you've done all that you could to make your efforts succeed.

It also makes it easier to sell the whole thing to your most important investor, your spouse. :)

And, frankly, it makes it easier to know when to bail out. I hope that doesn't happen, and I'm doing everything I can to ensure that it doesn't happen, but there are many factors that are simply out of my control. So for me, the knowledge that we have a strategy laid out, milestones and review dates set, backup plans in place, and escape routes (back to "the industry") mapped out as well as possible enable me to focus more clearly on what's in front of me right now, rather than worrying what might happen if I do need to go find a job again.

My email sig line for the past 6 years has been:

"If we keep our pride/Though Paradise is lost
We will pay the price/But we will not count the cost"
---Rush, "Bravado"

I couldn't have made the choice to "quit and go home" 3 years ago without the full support of my wife. We've had good years and...hmm...lean years, but I wouldn't have done it any different.

We've added a second child to the household since then, and since we homeschool as well, we're all home all the time. It was a learning experience at first, all of us getting used to being in the same house all day every day, but it's been the best time of my life (even with the slow creep of debt during the leaner times).

This past year being home with the new baby, as she's grown, crawled, pulled up, stepped, cried, teethed, pooped, messed, squawled, laughed, squealed (like a girl), and all the other parts have more than compensated for anything she may have cost us ("Do you have insurance?" "I have Visa."). I missed most of this with my first child because I was working fulltime then.

There is no price. There is only doing, and what comes after... ;)

I currently have a big loan to pay back, so I dont quit my job or anything like that. I tend to do teh deving on my free time and do my job 9-5. The only problem is it gets hard to do game dev 9-5 then come home and do more game dev.

Plans: pay up loan fully, get some money set aside to keep me for 3 months without any extra income and see what previous games give me.

Plan B: marry a old rich lady.

My wife is fairly independent too and runs her own web-based business (http://www.vegfamily.com), so entrepreneurship is just the family way. If one of us talked about getting a "job," the other person would probably laugh. I don't think either of us ever seriously considered it. To us having a job is less profitable, less enjoyable, and less secure than owning a business.

While during many of the early years I was making less money than I would have if I got a job, that isn't true today. Some years were hard for my wife, but she's been with me since the beginning. It can sometimes be hard to tell your spouse that you can't afford certain things. But I think it's harder to look back after several decades and live with the regret of knowing you gave up too soon.

My wife's family was fairly supportive, probably since several of her family members run (or have run) their own businesses. My family wasn't too supportive in the beginning, but they came around after about 5-6 years.

We have a daughter age 2-1/2. While being able to provide for her is important to me, it's more important that she be raised by parents who really go for it. The toys and goodies she'll grow up with are nothing compared to the values she'll learn from our example.

I think one thing people overlook is just how rewarding it can be for your spouse to watch you build your own business from scratch. Your spouse will probably be much happier if she sees you happy, even if you're making less money. Having money but being unhappy is no way to live, and it's no kind of example to inflict on your children.

You don't have to compromise between money and happiness though if you identify the area where the three circles of passion, talent, and money intersect for you.

It's fascinating to see such a rich set of perspectives on the same value. It's also comforting to know that so many of us share these values.

I've always done things a little differently and not necessarily better either. I'll be 24 in January with a wife and two sons, one 3 and one 6months. I spent two years slaving away for a large area company working 10-12hr days. I saw little to no gain towards my carrier goals (game development) and watched my relationship with my wife and kid as well as my quality of life deteriorate rapidly.

I left the comfortable salaried position with great benefits and became a contract employee. I contracted out for 40hrs a week and that's what I work. Since then i've had much more energy for working on my game. I've taken the time to get to know my wife and kids again and generally things have improved greatly.

I would love to work from home and be my own boss. I think I value that almost as much as doing game development. My wife sees my passion and she supports me in that she doesn't protest and she lets me go to company meetings once a week. She grew up in a rural nationhood and lived in the same house her whole life, her dad has had the same job for as long as she can remember. I would say she's tentatively curious but not to a point where she's encouraging me.

My parents are supportive, they have that entrepreneurial bug. I don’t think my wife’s parents are even aware of my ambitions. I'm sure they would think I was nuts to walk away from a job paying twice as much as they make. I would gladly move out of the expensive Seattle area out into the cheaper areas of Washington state if that's what it took to go full time. However I need to finish my game first, and until then mortgage and benefits need paying and I'll be working this 9-5.

I was lucky. I caught some breaks early on and really didn't have to go through the "hard times". Do I want my company to make more? Of course, we all do! But happiness and self-worth are more important. My wife is due to give birth in February, and it is a little scary- but it's also worth it.

My friend, Matt, coined a phrase in college. At the time, it was about picking up "iffy" women. He said, "I would rather regret doing than regret NOT doing."

Amazing how many things that actually applies to :)

*after three hours of sleep from yesterday* (*glares at Xbox*)

Thats exactly how I feel, honestly, I would rather 'make a living' doing game development or something creative than make twice as much working for someone else in a job that limits my creativity. Hopefully in a couple of years LED will be a full time job. (Well I would say next year, but I am hopefully going to become a student, so it will be part time anyway)

Now is probably what most would consider The Bad Times for me.

I've been at this for a few years and I still don't know if I'm ever gonna see a dime out of it yet. We made the mistake of getting our feet wet with a game that took about two years to develop just as a full demo, without knowing the trouble we were causing ourselves. It's too small to attract a big publisher, but too big to be considered by someone like Dexterity. Maybe we could sell it ourselves, but it's not done, and it'd still take another couple of months to finish. It really is something we'd probably need an advance to keep working on, but that seems like a pretty hopeless goal now.

Now we're aiming much smaller, but I'm sure it'll still be another month before the new game we're working on is at the demo stage.

My parents hope that I'll go back and finish my degree at some point, but they still support what I'm trying to do. My friends are behind me all the way still. My girlfriend is probably my biggest source of support right now, and she hopes as much as I do that this stuff will work out for me. I don't have a day job right now, but I'm gonna have to look for one pretty soon probably. If I ever saw money for this stuff I'd be ecstatic, but aside from the occasional bit of contract work, I've got nothing to show yet. If I don't at least have some sort of deal in place by sometime this spring, I don't know, I might just give up finally, or at least be reduced to weekend gamedev ;)

I was a bit lucky. My husband and I decided that staying home with my daughter was more important then me finding a job. Although times were rough, I used the time at home to built my little games hoping someday to actually bring it all together and make a gaming community.

There were many times that I didn't think I would ever reach that goal. I think there were times when my family thought I was wacko for even trying. My mom was always supportive and tried to help out as much as she could.

My husband was proud of the work I was doing, but I don't think he ever thought it was going to make money. Once my daughter started school, he got on me a bit more to find a job. We needed the money.

But I got lucky. Last March a crowd showed up in my lobby and I actually did start making money. I could make more by working at McDonalds.. and quite frankly sometimes i would rather be flipping burgers then dealing with the issues that go alone with running an online gaming community. But I'm making my dream come true. And I wouldn't change anything.

I am happy I got to stay home with my daughter. I love that I am still programming. I love knowing that when I die I'll be able to say I chased my dream.. I might even be able to say I caught it! :)

Hey Tams11 welcome!

I've heard of your site before, I'm not sure who I was talking to at the IGC, but they were telling me about you (and saying nice things). Looks like you've garnished some "street cred" out in the indie gaming community, Congrats!

Hi ya Dan!

I would say you were talking to DavidRm. He's been my mentor for about 5 years now. :)

I tend to stay in the shadows a bit... But I try and learn about all the indies out there. Looks like you have a great set up there with a great bunch of people and I love reading all your posts here. :)

My fiancee is a fine arts student finishing her degree in painting. She is studying at a small school where they place a lot of emphasis on the students having the capabilities to continue painting after graduation. Much of this is financial education, working as a free artist demands a lot of entrepreneurship. It amazes me often how similar different creative professions can be.

As we both are in the beginnings of our careers mutual support is something that kept us going. I don't think either of us would have made it to this point without each other. Her family has a history in creative arts so they have been supporting her, as well as me. My family consists almost solely of entrepreneurs and they have helped me since the beginning when I started to do contractor work.

One of the reasons for wanting to be independent is the freedom of place of living. Even if Helsinki is quite rural we still share the dream of moving some distance out of the city. The woods and nature in general must run through every Finns blood.